In the news of the slightly odd...

[jhetley]

Went for a walk around this suburban upscale neighborhood last night, viewing various forms of wildlife.  Bats, nighthawks, cottontail rabbits, and deer noted.  Not unusual, any of it.

But the deer, yes.  Two of them, habituated to humans so we just kept walking until we were maybe twenty feet away.  Noted that one of them was small, yes, a doe and a spring fawn.  Except that when we got near enough in the deepening twilight (shot with flashes of distant lightning), we saw that the larger of the two had antlers in velvet.  Six or eight points.  A _buck_ and a fawn?

Are we dealing with an ungulate pedophile here?

Comments

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

My dear monsieur Hetley -- don't tell me you have never seen Walt Disney's Bambi -- and don't tell me that Disney is Disney and has nothing to do with animal behaviour in the wild -- this was clearly Papa showing Junior the Ways of the World... [grin]

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If you wish to see Wife use unbecoming language, mention _Bambi_ in her presence.

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

I always considered myself lucky that my mother, on learning the plot of Bambi said the equivalent of "oh, HELL no!" and refused to take us. She also refused to take us to see Dumbo, although we saw that on the Wonderful World of Disney not that long after.

She said recently that she thought there was an element of cruelty in making so many movies aimed at children that show Mothers being killed or threatened with death.

[kayre]

Does will sometimes tolerate the presence of last year's youngsters; these may have been siblings a year apart.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

This was/is a full-grown buck. We saw a charming nuclear family pose this morning -- the buck, a doe, and the spotty half-grown fawn. Wife (a professional naturalist) considers them odd, verging on eccentric, to be hanging out together at this time of year.